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The ABET “Professional Skills” — Can They Be Taught? Can They Be Assessed?
Author(s) -
Shuman Larry J.,
BesterfieldSacre Mary,
McGourty Jack
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
journal of engineering education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.896
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 2168-9830
pISSN - 1069-4730
DOI - 10.1002/j.2168-9830.2005.tb00828.x
Subject(s) - accreditation , teamwork , set (abstract data type) , process (computing) , lifelong learning , soft skills , context (archaeology) , engineering ethics , engineering education , work in process , skills management , engineering , psychology , medical education , pedagogy , computer science , engineering management , political science , medicine , paleontology , operations management , law , biology , programming language , operating system
In developing its new engineering accreditation criteria, ABET reaffirmed a set of “hard” engineering skills while introducing a second, equally important, set of six “professional” skills. These latter skills include communication, teamwork, and understanding ethics and professionalism, which we label process skills, and engineering within a global and societal context, lifelong learning, and a knowledge of contemporary issues, which we designate as awareness skills. We review these skills with an emphasis on how they can be taught, or more correctly learned, citing a number of examples of successful and/or promising implementations. We then examine the difficult issue of assessing these skills. We are very positive about a number of creative ways that these skills are being learned, particularly at institutions that are turning to global and/or service learning in combination with engineering design projects to teach and reinforce outcome combinations. We are also encouraged by work directed at assessing these skills, but recognize that there is considerable research that remains to be done.